I love the Bud Light “Real Men of Genius” ads, which are some of the few radio ads of any kind that I even bother listening to. They salute ordinary guys doing ordinary things that make life in America extraordinary. If you haven’t heard these ads yet, hop over to Budlight.com where you can listen to them or even download a widget for your website. (Adding a beer-ad widget to your website without getting paid for it is a little weird, but if that fizzes your brew, go for it.)
In the spirit of it all, I’d like to salute the unsung heroes of my industry: the sales guys.
I began my career in sales, so I appreciate the challenges these guys face. They always have to be friendly and knowledgeable, even when they’re exhausted from traveling endlessly or talking to big-time jerkazoids. They hear the word “no” more than a hyperactive 3-year-old in a toy store. They get maliciously stereotyped by Hollywood as annoying double-talking weasels — check out William H. Macy’s brilliant performance in Fargo, Stephen Tobolowsky’s hilarious insurance guy in Groundhog Day, or the entire cast of Glengarry Glen Ross. Yet many of them earn only commissions, and when the economy declines, they feel the brunt of it.
And without them, the Web as we currently know it wouldn’t exist.
The Venture Capitalist’s (VC’s) are treated as gods for funding the dreams of geeks. The geeks are lauded as geniuses for turning strings of code into enterprises and empires. The creative guys win awards for their flashy designs or their tell-all blogs. But it’s the sales guys — often called “business development managers” or “account executives” — who close the sponsorship deals and score the ads that keep these web startups in business.
For better or worse, most Web 2.0 companies are ad-supported. Most big blogs, search engines, mapping sites, social networks, video showcases, sports and news sites rely on sales guys to go out and find the ads that will keep them afloat once the VC money dries up. Yet how many sales or biz-dev execs ever get featured on the cover of Wired? Hell, how many even get mentioned on the inside pages? It’s truly unfair, considering that Wired itself is ad-supported.
The popular misconception is that it’s easy to do sales — all you gotta do is call someone up, pitch your idea and ask for money. If you think that’s the case, I dare you to try it. For most people, the first cold-calling experience will make them swear off sales for the rest of their lives.
I did alright in sales, but I’m happy to have left it far behind. I now, fortunately, have a promising young sales guy working for Nullvariable: Robert Roskam. He’s fresh out of college, but has already shown he’s got what it takes to become a business-development all-pro.
What makes a great sales guy? Here’s a handy list for you:
1. A Great Rolodex: I know, nobody uses Rolodexes anymore — 99.9% of us keep our contacts on LinkedIn or our cellphone address books — but you get the point. A great sales guy has a solid base of connections that he’s continuously building. And it’s not just the frenetic and empty “friending” that typifies web 2.0 social networks. A great sales guy really gets to know his contacts so that when he needs to contact them, they’ll happily take his call. This is where experience matters: it’s only logical that the longer a sales guy has been at it, and the larger the companies he’s worked for, then the bigger and more valuable his Rolodex will be.
2. Fearlessness: It takes massive huevos to call up a complete stranger during tough economic times and to ask for their money. Nine times out of ten, you won’t even be able to get through to the person you’re trying to call, or they hang up after ten seconds. That’s enough to demoralize even the brashest Harvard MBA. I don’t know any sales guys who enjoy cold calling, but the great ones view it as nothing more than a minor chore, like flossing their teeth or washing their laundry.
3. Self-Control: Sales guys get rejected, hung-up on and lied to every single day. They see commission-only deals that they worked long and hard to construct completely collapse because one of their non-sales colleagues (even their CEO) perpetrated a bonehead move, like forget a meeting or have broken links on the website. They’re competing viciously with other sales guys, sometimes in their own company, for the same accounts. They get deals stolen from under them because the competition makes an unethical or illegal offer, such as a kickback or something even more scandalous. And yet, sales guys can NEVER lose their composure, because they represent the company on the front lines. They have to party with their potential customers, but they NEVER lose control because they’re supposed to make sales, not headlines.
4. Instinct: If a sales guy is living on commission only, he doesn’t have time to meet with everyone. And if he’s supposed to bring in prospective clients for the company, he doesn’t want to piss off his boss by introducing her to a prospect who turns out not to have any money. So a sales guy has to “qualify” his leads — he needs to find out as much about them, their intent and their resources as possible, without being too pushy or probing. This calls for as much instinct and intuition as it does for investigation. The great sales guys have this “nose” for promising prospects; the not-so-great ones don’t.
5. Networking Skills: There’s a major business conference or networking event every single day in major cities across the U.S. Everyone in business is told to attend as many of these events as possible, not because you’ll learn something (most of the speeches are material you can get from a blog like, uh, this one), but because you never know who you’re going to meet. The average guy goes to an event, collects some business cards, then loses them. A great sales guy already has the prospect interested before he asks for his card. He also has follow-up meetings scheduled before he leaves the event.
6. Closing Ability: Anyone can get leads or make a pitch; it takes a pro to consistently close. This requires creativity and negotiating skills to put together a package that appeals to the prospect. The amateur relies on price only. The pro figures out how to meet the prospect’s other needs and how to present an offer that’s a “better value” than the competition’s lower priced offer. Not only does the great sales guy get the prospect to sign on the bottom line, he also inspires his new customer to help with prospecting and referrals. You know you’ve really made the sale when your customers become your evangelists.
7. Follow Up: A sale doesn’t end with the signing of contracts and the exchange of money for services. A great sales guy knows that it’s easier to generate more business from someone who’s already said “yes” than to hit the cold-calling trail again. So he regularly follows up with his customers to make sure their needs are being met and to apprise them of special offers “just for them.” Sales is a full-time gig.
So, three cheers to the great sales guys of the world whose genius is truly extraordinary, thanks not only for bringing Nullvariable business, but for keeping YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook and ESPN and all the other free services I use and love alive. You may be villains or chumps in the movies, but you’re heroes in my book.
Now stop reading this and get back to work.
